Draw black boxes over names, SSNs, account numbers, addresses, or signatures and download a permanently redacted PDF. Runs 100% in your browser using pdfjs and pdf-lib: no upload, no server, no recoverable text layer.
Upload your PDF
Drag and drop your PDF onto the tool or click to browse. The file is loaded directly in your browser, no upload required.
Draw black boxes over sensitive areas
Click and drag on any page to draw a black redaction box. Navigate between pages with Prev and Next. Use Undo to remove the last box, or Clear page to start a page over.
Download the permanently redacted PDF
Click Redact and Download. Each page is flattened to an image with the black boxes baked into the bitmap, then assembled into a new PDF. The original text under the boxes is permanently gone.
Need to extract specific pages from a PDF before redacting? Split or rearrange your PDF first. Merge PDFs
Your document never reaches any server. Everything happens inside the browser tab: pdfjs renders each page to a canvas, you draw boxes, and the black pixels are baked in before your download starts.
The output is an image-based PDF. Original text, vectors, and metadata under the black boxes do not exist in the output file. There is no hidden layer to remove, no metadata to extract, and no way to recover the redacted content.
Navigate through all pages with Prev and Next. Redaction boxes are tracked per page independently. Draw as many boxes as you need across the full document before downloading once.
PDF redaction is the process of permanently removing sensitive information from a document before sharing it. Common use cases include removing names, Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, medical record numbers, home addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and handwritten signatures from contracts, invoices, legal filings, medical records, and government forms.
The critical word is "permanently." Many PDF editors let you draw a black rectangle on top of text, but this is a visual overlay: the text is still selectable underneath. Anyone who receives the file can remove the rectangle or copy-paste the hidden text. True redaction requires destroying the underlying content, not covering it.
SammaPix renders each PDF page to a pixel-by-pixel canvas image using pdfjs-dist, a JavaScript rendering engine. It then paints your black boxes directly onto that bitmap, permanently overwriting the pixels beneath them. Finally, it uses pdf-lib to build a new PDF where each page is a flat JPEG image. The output contains no text layer, no fonts, no vector paths, and no metadata about the original content. The redacted areas are gone at the pixel level.
This approach is the same technique used by professional document security tools. The trade-off is that the output PDF is image-based rather than text-based: you cannot search or copy text in the resulting file, and the file size may be slightly larger. For sharing sensitive documents, this trade-off is completely worthwhile.
Adobe Acrobat Pro includes a redaction tool that costs $19.99 per month. Foxit PDF Editor and Nitro PDF also offer redaction as paid features. SammaPix provides the same permanent-redaction result for free, entirely in your browser. There is nothing to install, no account required, and your document never touches a server. For individuals, freelancers, small law firms, HR teams, and anyone handling sensitive documents occasionally, SammaPix is the fastest and most private option available.
Yes. The tool rasterizes each PDF page to a canvas image, paints the black boxes directly onto that bitmap, then builds a new PDF from the resulting image frames. The original text, vector paths, and fonts do not exist in the output. There is no hidden text layer, no overlay, and no way to undo the redaction by editing the file.
Nothing is uploaded. The tool uses pdfjs-dist, a JavaScript PDF renderer that runs entirely inside your browser tab. Your document bytes never leave your device. You can disconnect from the internet after the page loads and the tool continues to work.
No. Because the output is image-based rather than text-based, there is nothing to recover. Tools that add a black rectangle on top of a PDF but leave the text layer intact can be defeated by removing the overlay or copying the text. SammaPix avoids this entirely by converting each page to a JPEG before building the output PDF.
Yes. Scanned PDFs are already image-based, so they render just like any other page. Draw your redaction boxes, and the export will bake them into the existing scanned image. The result is identical in quality to the original scan, minus the redacted areas.
The free plan lets you redact up to 15 pages per document. SammaPix Pro raises the limit to 300 pages and is available from the dashboard. For most personal, legal, or HR use cases, 15 pages is sufficient for contracts, invoices, and ID documents.
This is intentional and is the only safe way to guarantee redaction in a browser. Keeping the original text layer and just placing a black rectangle on top is reversible. Rasterizing the page to a JPEG and embedding that into the output PDF destroys the text permanently. The trade-off is that the output is not searchable and may be slightly larger in file size, but the privacy guarantee is absolute.